A Familiar Journey | Parshat Lech Lecha
Lech-L’cha (לֶךְ-לְךָ leḵ-ləḵā — Hebrew for “go!” or “leave!”, literally “go for you” — the fifth and sixth words in the parashah) is the third weekly Torah portion (פָּרָשָׁה, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis 12:1–17:27. The parashah is made up of 6,336 Hebrew letters, 1,686 Hebrew words, and 126 verses, and can occupy about 208 lines in a Torah Scroll (סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה, Sefer Torah).[1] Jews read it on the third Sabbath after Simchat Torah, in October or November.[2]
The parashah tells the stories of God’s calling of Abram (who would become Abraham), Abram’s passing off his wife Sarai as his sister, Abram’s dividing the land with his nephew Lot, the war between the four kings and the five, the covenant between the pieces, Sarai’s tensions with her maid Hagar and Hagar’s son Ishmael, and the covenant of circumcision (בְּרִית מִילָה, brit milah).